Silly Small Strava Segments

bikeboy76 wrote:I have now

bikeboy76 wrote:

I have now hidden the offending segment (thanks Tom) though it is still there. Seems like a lot of you think there should be a clean up.

Ok a couple of questions: how could a clean up be accomplished? How much would you be prepared to pay for it? I think you have to recognise strava for what it is and accept its limitations – and also consider that is probably not going to get better over time without some kind of radical change.

The deal you make with strava is that in return for the free service it provides to users, a proportion of those users will actively generate content (segments) for the service and everyone who rides them contributes more passively to the body of data that lends the service it’s ‘weight’ or credibility. Strava then uses all this content and data and combines it with some extra features to sell subscriptions, which along with the merchandise and sponsored challenges is presumably where it makes it’s money from – if indeed it makes any money. I’d hazard a guess that less than 1 in 10 users subscribe.

So what you’re getting is something that, at the moment, is just about good enough for people to go on creating free content for strava to sell. However it’s unlikely to be cost effective for them to do any more rigorous quality control over the data than they do now, and beyond adding some more filtering options or a rating system, probably not much they can do to make any informed decisions about whether a segment is good or bad.

The service is probably at its peak right now but it will be interesting to see how they go forward from here, whether they need to start charging more people for levels of access, or restrict content creation rights and what that might do to the user base. I enjoy using it but i wouldn’t pay for it and the world would not end if they dropped free access.

It’s sad to say, but I’m
It’s sad to say, but I’m becoming more and more obsessed with Strava after learning about all this segment business (prior to this I had never used Strava as I already used other trackers).

I don’t go out of my way to beat segments, but it’s nice to see how I stack up against others and to get a PB on a segment is good. Then there’s the challenges, even though I don’t have the cash for the limited edition kit, my aim is to work up to at least being able to get the monthly challenge badges.

Crosshouses wrote:Nat Jas Moe

Crosshouses wrote:

Nat Jas Moe wrote:

On the subject of silly segments I want to know how a dead pan flat segment is a cat 4 segment on strava? Or someone managed to nibble it, it isn’t even dangerous unless your not paying attention.

I’ve seen a couple of these recently, one near Ypres and one near Weaverham (Cheshire). I imagine the originators of the segments attached their Garmin to a kite.

The most likely cause is bad GPS data from a smart phone rather than a Garmin. I have seen an iphone give a 3000ft elevation difference for the same ride recorded on an Edge 500.

I can’t see how Strava would eradicate these segments, apart from only letting rides logged with GPS devices be used for segment creation. But the horse has bolted now as there are so many dodgy segments out there.

parksey wrote:The thing that

parksey wrote:

The thing that frustrates me is when you get several segments over the same climb, just with subtly different start or finish points. What’s the point? I can only assume they’re deliberately created by segment whores to enable them to claim multiple KOMs together rather than just one, but it would seem something of a hollow “victory” to me.

This… this drives me nuts. Although should you go up one of these climbs fastest, you end up with loads of KOM’s not just one!

I’ve been told that GPS
I’ve been told that GPS errors are around +/- 2 seconds between points, which obviously makes a short segment an absolute nonsense – if a segment takes 20 seconds and there’s a 4 second error potential, what’s the purpose? Obviously it doesn’t stop me going for them, because I am an idiot and I like sprinting.

Except that the
Except that the auto-generated segments often arise when one person’s GPS registers an altitude glitch and Strava thinks it’s a climb when it isn’t. Thus a silly short flat segment called “B1234 climb” or “Ivy Close Climb” is generated, and sometimes even categorised. They’re really annoying and I’ve even seem some daft KOM battles erupt for a couple local to me.

Not seen any silly short
Not seen any silly short segments, but have seen a few that IMO are dangerous, there’s one on my commute that is on an narrow gravel footpath with high fences on both sides and has a few blind corners. To encourage someone to do that stretch at speed is foolish, especially as I have passed families with pushchairs walking along there, the only way to do it safely would be to have someone sat at every corner to let the rider know the way ahead is safe, which I seriously doubt is how the KoM was recorded.

First up, you can hide
First up, you can hide sections in Strava, so if you don’t like a section simply hit hide against the segment in the segment list for a ride and you won’t see it again for any rides in the future (that’s on the web version, not sure about the app).

I guess a lot of the shorter sections are sprints that people do regularly on their own or on club training rides, so they may not make a lot of sense viewed outside the context of the full ride.

I like the shorter sections though (although not silly short obviously), if you know there’s a sprint section coming it gives you a bit of motivation to pick up the pace again.

And yes, if you create a long and very specific route there are definitely people who will target it as an easy KoM, the fact that it’s so specific makes it an easy scalp for those who are that way inclined!